The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas. Francisco de Quevedo

as ye saw me just now; nay, I did not care if ’twere into a powder, though I ended my days in a tobacco-box.” “Good sir,” said I, “comfort yourself, for these people are as miserable as you’d wish them. You know they are cavaliers and signiors already, and now (forsooth) they have an itch upon them to be princes: a vanity that gnaws them like a cancer; and by drawing on great expenses, breeds a worm in their traffic, so that you’ll find little but debt and extravagance at the foot of the accompt. And then the devil’s in them for a wench, insomuch, that ’tis well, if they bring both ends together; for what’s gotten upon the ’Change is spent in the stews.”

      “This is well,” quoth the necromancer, “and I’m glad to hear it. Pray’e tell me now, what price bears honour and honesty in the world?” “There’s much to be said,” quoth I, “upon that point; but in brief, there was never more of it in talk, nor less in effect. ‘Upon my honesty,’ cries the tradesman; ‘Upon my honour,’ says his lordship. And in a word, every man has it, and every thing is it, in some disguise or other; but duly considered, there’s no such thing upon the face of the earth. The thief says ’tis more honourable to take than beg. He that asks an alms, pleads that ’tis honester to beg than steal. Nay the false witnesses and murderers themselves stand upon their points, as well as their neighbours, and will tell ye that a man of honour will rather be buried alive than submit (though they will not always do as they say). Upon the whole matter, every man sets up a court of honour within himself, pronounces everything honourable that serves his purpose, and laughs at them that think otherwise. To say the truth, all things are now topsy-turvy. A good faculty in lying is a fair step to preferment; and to pack a game at cards, or help the frail die, is become the mark and glory of a cavalier. The Spaniards were heretofore, I confess, a very brave, and well governed people; but they have evil tongues among them nowadays, that say they might e’en go to school to the Indians to learn sobriety and virtue. For they are not really sober, but at their own tables, which indeed is rather avarice than moderation; for when they eat or drink at another man’s cost, there are no greater gluttons in the world; and for fuddling, they shall make the best pot-companion in Switzerland knock under the table.”

      The necromancer went on with his discourse, and asked me what store of lawyers and attorneys in Spain at present. I told him, that the whole world swarmed with them, and that there were of several sorts: some, by profession; others, by intrusion and presumption; and some again by study, but not many of the last, though indeed sufficient of every kind to make the people pray for the Egyptian locusts and caterpillars in exchange for that vermin. “Why then,” quoth the necromancer, “if there be such plagues abroad, I think I had best e’en keep where I am.” “It is with justice,” said I, “as with sick men; in time past, when we had fewer doctors (as well of law as of physic) we had more right, and more health: but we are now destroyed by multitudes, and consultations, which serve to no other end than to inflame both the distemper and the reckoning. Justice, as well as truth, went naked, in the days of old; one single book of laws and ordinances, was enough for the best ordered Government in the world. But the justice of our age is tricked up with bills, parchments, writs, and labels; and furnished with millions of codes, digests, pandects, pleadings, and reports; and what’s their use, but to make wrangling a science? and to embroil us in seditions, suits, and endless trouble and confusion. We have had more books published this last twenty years than in a thousand before, and there hardly passes a term without a new author, in four or five volumes at least under the titles of glosses, commentaries, cases, judgments, etc. And the great strife is, who writes most, not best; so that the whole bulk is but a body without a soul, and fitter for a churchyard than a study. To say the truth, these lawyers and solicitors are but so many smoke-merchants, sellers of wind, and troublers of the public peace. If there were no attorneys, there would be no suits; if no suits, no cheats, no serjeants; no catchpoles, no prisons; if no prisons, no judges; no judges, no passion; no passion, no bribery or subornation.